Skepticism

EVENTS

No fools here

I am officially declaring this an April Fools-Free Zone. No foolin’.

My grumpiness might contribute to that, too. I ended up with an utterly miserable redeye flight from Seattle to Minneapolis — I landed at 5am. I’m still traveling to get home (I’m on a stimulant break right this instant), and as soon as I get there, I’m going in to work. Expect surly snarliness, world, until my labs are all over, I’m truly home, and I’m crashed into unconsciousness on my bed.

Though I was once peripherally part of a brilliant one (not my idea). I was doing essays for WXXI in Rochester, NY. They had radio channels news and classical/other stuff .
Early in the morning of April 1, the engineers switched them!
People woke up and (half asleep for the most part) like good citizens phoned us to tell us that something was wrong. I was at the station and helped answer the flurry (more like blizzard) of calls. It was delightful to talk to the listeners as they fully woke up and realized what we had done.
And no one was harmed in the making of the joke.
Does that make you feel better till you crash?

Is this some kind of meta April Fools prank, which is to make people think you’re not performing an April Fools prank, when you are in fact performing a prank by making them think that you’re not.

Or perhaps a meta meta April Fools prank, which is to make people think you’re not performing a meta April Fools prank, when you are in fact performing a meta prank by making them think that you’re not.

All right, no foolishness today – but I reserve the right to continue my normal behavior for the next 364 days.

However, our esteemed and grumpy host flouts an ancient and mighty historical tradition. A little-known fack: about 1.98 millennia ago, it so happened that April 1 occurred one day after Passover, and some guys had the brainstorm of yanking a particularly nutty’s cult’s chain by heisting their guru’s cadaver… the yucks from that one have continued for centuries!

I’m digging Google’s new Map mode: Treasure Map. Street view in that mode is also changed. Coursera also started offering ‘Underwater Basket Weaving’ today. Just a simple reminder that they aren’t a serious college.

The reason I like those is because they’re not really ‘hahah – made you look’ style “jokes”. There are trolls who make being fools more than just a single day hobby and I think that plays into my own impatience with that method of “joking.”

Not usually a fan of hoaxes, but I like the silly gags. The first time syndicated newspaper cartoonists swapped comics for a day was pretty amazing. Blizzard’s wacky patch notes and game announcements (Molten core raid, for the Atari 2600!), and fun Google modes.

When I was in middle school, the go-to April Fools’ Day joke among my circle of friends was to tell your best friend your family was moving out of town. Then, after she was upset and crying, you would say April Fools!

I’ve done things in my life I’m not proud of, but as far as I can recall, I never did that.

No, I instead hope that our host’s “surly snarliness” is transformed into his usual gleeful snarkiness, his “grumpinesss” into sninyness. His post suggests that he doesn’t really like the mood he’s in, so I hope it lifts. And today’s (abandoned and forgotten, thus ripe for reinvention) holiday may be the day for it.

As for April Fool’s Day, I don’t like it either. I have to deal with enough deceit as it is.

By the way, Easter will be on April 1 in 2018. This will happen again in 2029, which (according to some calculations) will quite conveniently be the 2000th anniversary of that famous guy’s execution. Mark your calendars, folks.

The jokes that show some cleverness, like the BBC’s famous April 1st hoaxes (a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dfWzp7rYR4″>the migrating penguins is a prime example), are acceptable. “Your shoelace is untied…April Fools!” aren’t.

No Kidding : DLCs Paternal Grandmother was born on this day, mumble-mumble years ago.
Of course, she came from a time and place where births were recorded in the family bible, and most births were in the home. Well, happy birthday anyway, long-dead Grandmother.

When I realized this year April 1st finally wasn’t on a weekend, I was going to dress up in a suit, go in to see my department chair, and thank her for all her help, but tell her I just couldn’t do engineering any more and was going to be switching to a Business major.

On April Fool’s day when he was twelve years old, my boyfriend’s mom played– or tried to play– joke on him. While driving to school, she informed him that she had big, important news to share– she was going to have another baby. A younger brother or sister for him, isn’t that exciting?!

Boyfriend sat and thought for a moment, then said “How long ago was it that you got your hysterectomy?”

It happened when he was nine, a pretty complicated and serious event, and he remembered being told about it. He reflected to me today how interesting it was that his mother chose that to joke about, and how much it revealed about what she knew about what he knew about sex and reproduction, which apparently was nothing. In actuality he knew all about the birds and the bees at that age, for all intents and purposes despite his mother and her wishes.

His mom was, and still is, a very conservative evangelical Christian. Boyfriend is an atheist. I bet you didn’t see that one coming (just joking).